Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Billy Squier was the rock star who never was. The Gadfly states that because this guy just put out some of the most awesome, mind-bending, kick ass music over the years, but he never seemed to garner the industry or public recognition like a fuckhead like Ted Nugent did . . . . anyway -- this song, in The Gadfly's humble view, puts any of Ted's wang-dang pussy songs to shame:

The Gadfly, in a moment of New Year's Eve rocking downtime, was momentarily reminiscing about all of the great concerts he has attended in his young 50+ year career of raising hell on this earth. Just off the top of his head, here is a partial list of acts that The Gadfly has had the pleasure of seeing play live (note - it's fairly diverse):

The Gadfly has never once doubted the size of Bon Scott's balls . . . . not once . . . . and The Gadfly can only daydream as to what it would have been like to have been at a New Year's Eve party with this crazy bastard . . . .

The Gadfly is going to grant mercy to you dear readers and avoid posting all of the hoary old New Year's themed rock/pop songs (you know which ones The Gadfly is referring to), so let's just get right down to brass tacks and get the old Sherwood stereo receiver warmed up and the Acoustic Research speakers a thumpin' and get this freaking party rolling. . . .shall we? . . . .

The Gadfly was going to wait until the passing of the New Year's festivities before posting about this, but since just about every other blogger and their mothers have already brought the subject up, to hell with it.

Besides - it will give you dear readers something to think about this evening while you are twirling your noise makers and eyeing the last few potential shots in that bottle of Patron Silver that is sitting unattended on a table in the corner off the dance floor:

Take it away Charlie Pierce:

Fans of our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, come into the new year with the hope that the administration will be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet as it green-lights the death funnel that will bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the environmental moonscape of northern Alberta to the refineries of Texas, trying (and likely failing) to avoid bringing permanent goopy desolation to the country's most valuable farmland along the way. Paul Ryan took a short break a couple of weeks ago from discovering poor people to try and make approval of the death-funnel part of his overall program of zombie-eyed granny starving.

Mercury wafting out of oilsands operations is impacting an area - or "bull's-eye" - that extends for about 19,000 square kilometres in northeast Alberta, according to federal scientists. Levels of the potent neurotoxin found near the massive industrial operation have been found to be up to 16 times higher than "background" levels for the region, says Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who recently reported the findings at an international toxicology conference. Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage. It is such a concern that Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed an international treaty in October pledging Canada to further reduce releases to the environment.

The problem with this kind of thing is that we always catch up with the real damage after it already has occurred. Environmentalism has become a reactive matter of simply trying to keep up.

**Disclosure: The Gadfly has to admit that he previously announced that he has abandoned most all of his hope of ever having a sane, fact-based discussion with American conservatives on the subject of environmental protection and the importance of such to the survival of the human race. To the point that even off-hand mentioning that stated scientific fact that "Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage," would simply be viewed by them as a beneficial cost of doing business, which is actually quite a worrying state of affairs considering it is a view being expressed by the very same people who's brains, if damaged much further, would put them in to a non-reversible vegetative state.

The Gadfly offers an alternative proposal. Let us create a second proposed route for this pipeline. The current proposed route has the death-funnel snaking it's way through a lot of pristine wilderness and fairly unspoiled rural areas in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, and not too unsurprisingly, across a few Native American reservations (just because it's so easy to fuck over a bunch of helpless, destitute indigenous peoples who have zero voice in their country's affairs - dontcha know?).

Anyhow - consider now - the Gadfly's proposed route, which has that motherfucking pipeline running right through downtown Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Dick Cheney's chosen home of record) then doing a 90 degree right turn and barreling it's way in to the conservative enclave of Boise, Idaho, then a dog-leg down into Nevada, in to Las Vegas right under the glitzy Vegas Strip (hey - they can add it to the betting windows - give odds as to when it's going to explode in a mushroom fireball), then in to California, right through fucking Beverly Hills along the entire route of Rodeo Drive, then down through conservative Orange County, and then in to just as conservative San Diego county. After that it shoots straight across to Phoenix, Arizona, right underneath supreme asshole Sheriff Joe Arpaio's police HQ, continuing straight across New Mexico until it arrives in Texas. Now when it arrives in Texas, The Gadfly feels that, since all these fucking asshole Texas conservatives just loves them some oil industry money, then they won't object to having this pipeline run through their own home towns and districts, even if it has to criss-cross the state north and south, east and west a dozen times, before it finally connects with it's current, and final leg of the route, straight down in to the Houston/Port Arthur area.

Let's put both the KeystoneXL Corporation's proposed route and The Gadfly's proposed route up to a national vote by ALL of the American people. Whaddy'a say? Hmmmm?

Of course The Gadfly is just being a facetious and annoying sonofabitch and devil's advocate here, but he damn well guarantees that his proposal would have a pretty fair chance of winning and if it did, you can be fucking certain that there would be some pretty pissed off, wealthy elites braying and moaning across the land. The only difference being that The Gadfly would be sympathetic to their concerns, because he has taken the time to educate himself on this issue and understands the serious nature of the impact that this death funnel can have on our environment and communities.

If only these oil loving bastards would be equally reciprocal with that sympathy for those who are in the current proposed path of the monstrosity, then perhaps a rational conversation could take place. But we know that ain't gonna happen.

The billionaire investor and philanthropist, who gave $200 million to New York University's medical center in 2008, told CNBC an anonymous seven-figure donor felt slighted by the pope's recent comments.

Langone has not been shy about sharing those opinions with New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, telling him, "you get more with honey than with vinegar."

Allow The heathen Gadfly to translate that last line from billionaire Catholic Ken Langone for you dear readers:

Hey there Mr. Pope dude -- you better start saying some nice, sugary things about us billionaires if you want to see those checks keep coming in for your parish projects and poverty outreach programs. Better yet, why don't you plant a big fat smooch twixt the fleshy part of our very fleshy, and if you didn't already get the point, obscenely wealthy, ass cheeks.

Giving a Wall Street mafia threat to the Pope -- that's pretty brass balls bold -- enough so that The Gadfly will dedicate a very fine beverage to Ken Langone's shiny brass ballsiness:

John Cole over at the blog Balloon Juices goes it even one better:

"One of the weirdest things to me about our current pathology of worshiping the rich is that they demand it from us proles. I mean, they are the true winners in society, and they just don’t understand why we don’t love them as much as they love themselves. Everyone knows that the importance of Christian charity is giving away .5% of your wealth and then salving the wound with the grateful tears from the populace."

Hey, who knows, maybe Pope Francis will take yet one more step in his ongoing, and thus far promising, bid to convert The Gadfly to his religion by publicly telling Ken Langone and his billionaire hedge fund buddies to go pound fucking sand.

More reason to suspect that the gene pool of a certain segment of American males opted to take the muddy, zigzagging low road at the fork in the road to human evolution instead of the obstacle free, paved and straight high road:

Nuclear war. Volcanic eruption. Terrorist attack.

Though the scenarios of how an apocalyptic event would paralyze or destroy society varies, a group of like-minded individuals in East Pierce County believes a good defense is the best way to prepare for doomsday.

And some believe a good offense is even better.

“We’re not in it to stockpile. We’re in it to take what you have and there’s nothing you can do to stop us,” Tyler Smith says. “We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”

Smith, 29, is the leader of Spartan Survival. The group has more than 80 dues-paying members. Smith founded the organization in 2005 to train and prepare others on survivalism.

On Tuesday night, Smith’s story will be told on the National Geographic Channel survivalist TV show “Doomsday Preppers.”

If The Gadfly had the time and inclination to analyze and offer up all of the reality-based counter-points to this clown's reasoning, he would do so, but Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, over at Charlie Pierce's Esquire blog has a fairly reasonable summary and thus The Gadfly leaves the honor to him:

"Now you should know that I really do not have a problem with most of those that call themselves "Survivalists." By and large they are a harmless lot. They believe in a philosophy which is not unlike that of the Mormons. Being prepared for the worst, in their minds, is just common sense. And I can grok that. My whole adult life has, more or less, been devoted to the same general (if not specific) philosophy, albeit from a national perspective. Though I must say, we sort of part ways pretty early on.

And most of those who are self-styled "Survivalists" are what the much-lamented Douglas Adams would have called "mostly harmless." Which is also cool. You want to stockpile three years of food (which you will continually have to replenish as older stocks go out of date and mean that you would die if you ate them), or stockpile multiple years of ammunition (which unless properly stored in a climate controlled environment, will also go bad in just a couple of years), well then that is your right. Spend your money that way, enjoy. Buy that unused nuclear missile bunker. Support our economy by buying, over and over and over again, things that you were sure you would need in the next couple of years, starting in the late 1980s. By the way, how is that working out for you and your family?

The fact that a significant percentage of the people that follow this path cannot economically afford to do so, to restock and replenish unused resources every year, or that they choose to do so to the detriment of their own children's inheritance, is not really my problem. After all, it is a free country.

But that dude? The one who has a plan to actually attack other Americans to steal their resources (food, fuel, etc) when he thinks the end-times have come, well that is really absurd. But I see now that there is no denying, these people are out there, mostly contributing to the NRA apparently.

My personal favorite? His home-made body armor made out of kitchen floor tiles. Yea, seriously, you can't make this shit up."

And of course it goes without saying -- shame on the National Geographic Channel for pimping these clowns and their apocalyptic buffoonery to begin with. Sure, it's their network and they can air any damn thing they wish, but please - just stop trying to pass this visual garbage off to the masses as "educational" television that is meant to expand the boundaries of human intellectual pursuit for the overall goal of the betterment of mankind.

Lord knows that the Democratic party has it's fair share of useless politicians, and likely a handful of institutionally corrupt ones as well.

But when it comes to cornering the market on some of the most loathsome -- loathsome as in The Gadfly gags at the thought of having to share oxygen on this planet with them -- and hideous human beings on the planet as your political party's representatives, that accolade goes hands down to the Republicans.

Stockman, who's a longshot candidate running in the Republican primary against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), tweeted out a picture of a gun with a spray can that read "liberal tears." The text with the picture read: "the best gun lubricant."

Yes -- the best way to clean a gun is with liberal tears. No doubt the kind of liberal tears that streamed forth from the eyes of those liberal, east coast, Sandy Hook parents who had to identify the shredded and exploded corpses of their first grade babies whom they had routinely dropped off at school one day, never contemplating the thought that the lunacy of random gun violence would destroy their lives for just being in the right place at the wrong time.

If Steve Stockman were standing in front of The Gadfly at this very moment, The liberal Gadfly would show some of those liberal tears to Mr. Stockman. Oh - not tears of sadness at knowing that morons like Mr. Stockman have monopolized the gun control debate in this country, but tears of joy at watching Mr. Stockman writhe in agony on the floor after The Gadfly has planted the steel toe of his size 10 motorcycle boot directly to his putrid, shriveled scrotum sac.

Honestly -- what DNA strand has been so horribly deformed in these people's hereditary genome that makes their brains function so defectively?

What is even sadder about all of this is that this fuckhead, with statements like that one, will probably win election as a result -- which as it should be noted -- will be nothing more than a direct reflection on the moral character of the people of Texas who vote for him.

If 2014 is going to be a year of good tidings at all, it starts with ensuring that soulless, cowardly sons of bitches like Steve Stockman never see the interior halls of the Senate Chamber as one of it's elected members.

Five years after all those bailouts for big banks, major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America agreed to pay many billions of dollars in fines this year to settle claims involving a range of wrongdoing, from questionable mortgage practices to trading fiascos.

The list goes on. But amid all the headlines — and there have been many in recent years — the question remains: Do big fines actually prompt corporations to mend their ways? Many ordinary people certainly want companies to be held accountable. But for corporations, fines sometimes seem like the cost of doing business.

"But for corporations, fines sometimes seem like the cost of doing business." Gee -- could it possible be that way because the reality is, for corporations anyway, that crime truly does pay?

Which has The Gadfly wondering something else - if indeed, as our purportedly fair and balanced United States Supreme Court has decided, that "corporations are people," where is the fairness and the balance in the sentencing structure where an 18 year old person gets sent up the river with a 20 year prison sentence for having a few marijuana joints in his pocket as opposed to allowing a wealthy, lawyer-rich corporation person to just pay a fine, which typically amounts to an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the profit they made off of that crime, for his/her (if corporations are people btw, what is their gender?) crimes -- crimes, for which it should be noted, often have widespread economic/financial effects that have the potential to ruin millions of people's lives?

The Gadfly's old friend George Carlin had it right when he stated this:

"The same way we made up the death penalty. We made them both up, Sanctity of life and the death penalty. Aren't we versatile? And you know, in this country, now there are alot of people who want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren't afraid to die. They're already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they're not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn't mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like... the bankers who launder the drug money. The bankers, who launder, the drug money. Forget the dealers, you want to slow down that drug traffic, you got to start executing a few of these fucking bankers."

That video was from about 18 years ago. Carlin was right then, and if were still alive, he would be shouting the same words even louder and with even more urgency and gusto, and it goes without saying he would still be right today.

Unless the American people find the collective will and courage to stand up and voice, not a desire for - but non-negotiable demands for, harsh, equitable punishment for these corporate criminals, then nothing will ever change and the ruinous destiny of this country will have been sealed with the imprimatur of a people's cowed acceptance of an interminably corrupt system of justice.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

The Gadfly, as alluded to previously, has officially moved on from the Duck Dodgers Dynasty buffoonery. In fact, The Gadfly truly does not give a rat's ass that the suits at A&E Network decided to put, as The Gadfly has referred to him up to this point, the bible-thumping old bigot, Phil Robertson, back on the air. It's their network and they can do any goddamn thing they please with it, a concept, it might be noted, that is entirely foreign to the idiots who threw a "free speech" shit fit when A&E temporarily suspended the old goat to begin with.

Frankly - The Gadfly would much prefer to talk about the bombshell New York Times investigative report that pretty much confirms that Darrell Issa and the wingnut Republicans have been flogging a dead, decomposing, maggot-infested horse carcass for the better part of a year and a half with their Benghazi-gate hearings. But there will be plenty of time after the New Year's festivities conclude for that sordid conversation to take place.

But back to the inanity - so basically, the blogger Digby, much more prominent and widely read on the intertoobs than The Gadfly and his shitty little blog could ever hope to be, flagged this interesting video of the bible-thumping bigot Phil Robertson this morning on her site:

Now - The Gadfly would be the first to acknowledge that he himself is not the sharpest tool in the old proverbial shed, but he'll be a goldurn, suck-egg mule if that video doesn't make it out to sound like old Phil, the bible-thumping bigot, is advocating for young men to engage in sexual fornication activities with 15 and 16 year old girls.

But it's not the admission of having a hankering for sex with underage girls, aka statutory rape, that has piqued The Gadfly's interest here. Considering the old goat Robertson's fucked up, biblical world view of things, the fact he thinks deflowering teen girls is an unassuming family value and should be a personal pursuit of young American males as he himself once was, is simply additional evidence that those vaunted, right wing Christian values which people of Phil Robertson's ilk are incessantly bloviating about, are, in reality, nothing more than a load of pure, unadulterated bullshit.

So no -- this video does not shock The Gadfly in the least.

What it does do though is it has instilled a bit of cautious optimism in The Gadfly. Optimism?--you dear reader ask incredulously? Optimism over an old pervert waxing rhapsodic about statutory raping of young girls? Absolutely -- and here is why dear readers. It's because it is a sign. It is a sign that if the modern day right wing conservative movement has sunk to such decrepit depths of cynicism and distorted ideas of morality that creeps such as Phil Robertson are the heroes whom they rally around and blindly defend, then it really is just a matter of time before that movement itself collapses under the weight of it's own hypocrisy and soulless values system. And that folks is good news for humanity and for progressive politics in the long run.

Shame on the fucking millionaire club otherwise known as the U.S. Senate.

And shame on the U.S. fucking worthless, lapdog, gutless media for failing to hold the "leaders" and the business elites of this country accountable for sticking a shiv in to the ribs of 1.3 million Americans post Christmas.

And we have the balls to run around the world beating our chests saying "we're the greatest?"

Charlie Pierce really does not like Wisconsin Senator, and Mitt Romney tag team partner Paul Ryan. And in The Gadfly's view, Pierce's motives for his brutal verbal hostility toward the man are justified when one comes to know Ryan's own welfare queen past as contrasted with his present actions as a U.S. Senator.

Observe the hide skinning:

Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin and First Runner-up in our most recent vice-presidential pageant, is death on people who don't work for a living. Unemployment benefits create a culture of entitlement, after all. The modern welfare state destroys the work ethic that made America the kind of place where a burger-flipping kid from Janesville, only through luck and pluck and Social Security survivor benefits (You're welcome, dickhead.), could rise to a point where Joe Biden laughed at him on national TV. Paul Ryan believes that government benefits have a corrosive effect on society, depriving its members of the character-building effects of poverty and hunger. He believes in the salvific effect of money earned in the perfect free-enterprise system.

After years of remaining neutral on an off-reservation casino in Kenosha, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Janesville signaled Thursday that he supported a casino plan as long as competing tribes were on board. He also credited Gov. Scott Walker for taking his time and not rushing a decision on the Menominee tribe's efforts to build an $800 million gambling complex. For months, Walker has been weighing a decision on the project, which has faced opposition from the Forest County Potawatomi, who operate a Milwaukee casino. The Ho-Chunk, with casinos near Madison and Baraboo, have also opposed the project. "I would like to think they could have a win-win situation and make it to the benefit for everybody. That would be my preference," Ryan said during an interview with reporters and editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Ryan added, "It would be great to see them come up with a system where no one loses and everyone gains and we net-create jobs. So how you have an arrangement where the Potawatomi have a stake in Kenosha, I don't know how you'd do it. Have some kind of an arrangement where they can make it mutually beneficial."

Considering that Ryan's basic position is that we also should turn Social Security and Medicare over to his cronies in the Wall Street casino, I guess there's a sort of consistency there in his deep affection for economic parasites.

The Gadfly is in the throes of his end of year festivities, and therefore blog posting will be light this week.

Nonetheless, here is something to tide you over in the interim:

Texans living in deregulated electricity areas paid about $22 billion more in the last decade than they would have under a regulated system, according a recent analysis by a consumer group.

Texas residential consumers have paid as much as 45 percent more for deregulated electricity than their counterparts in regulated areas of the state since lawmakers devised the new system for much of the state in 1999, according to the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, which recently published an assessment of Texas energy price data from 2002 through 2012.

The findings raise questions about claims made at the time that deregulation would result in lower prices for Texan consumers. While prices for both deregulated and regulated electricity have fallen since their peak in 2008, average deregulated prices remain about 3 cents high per kilowatt hour than their regulated counterparts for residential consumers.

The Gadfly has been blogging going on pert near 10 years now dear readers, and one can go back through his shitty little blog archives and find references near that long ago where The Gadfly was questioning the wisdom of deregulating everything under the sun and allowing big business to have it's unfettered way in an unregulated world.

Over the years The Gadfly has observed this deregulation phenomenon expand to include most of the energy utilities and substantial sections of the financial services and banking industry. We all know how the 2008 financial crisis crashed the world economy --- and anyone who says that deregulation did not play a major factor in that disaster either has their sphincter licking head up the ass of the same people who caused it, or just simply hasn't been paying attention.

The Gadfly cautioned readers way in the early days of his shitty blogging hobby against rushing to deregulate the energy sector, for we had already seen what had occurred with deregulation in the airline, telecommunications, media and cable television industries. The joyous promises from the deregulation crowd of expanded competition and lower prices to the consumer simply never materialized. In fact, in all of those industries, the mom & pop companies and the financially vulnerable ones were trampled and gobbled up, and the services summarily consolidated, among just a few big money conglomerates. And of course, the consumers got bent over a barrel and reamed - gee - what a shock huh kids?

But the American consumers bought in to the bullshit and the lies from these industries and now they are paying higher prices for basic necessities like electricity and gas --- oh, and have you checked your cable bill lately? --- and these same deregulation jackals now have their sights set on privatizing the water industry (yeah - you know - that liquid shit we humans need, along with O2, to survive?) as well.

How high does the pile of evidence that deregulation has never benefited consumers and always benefited only the institutional (Wall Street) investors need to grow before people accept the reality of it? How many of their lies need to be swallowed as bitter pills. How badly do people need to be financially fucked in the ass before they get it?

This story about Texas is just the latest in a very long line of examples. And the good folk of the Lone Star state thought that just because they were Texans that their fellow Texas businessmen would deal with them fairly?

You mean to tell The Gadfly that one of the most important religious figures in the world who publicly professes that the undivided love of money is evil and that the love of one's own species is blessed might be a bit more popular than Donald fucking Trump is news? .....

CNN) – As Pope Francis prepares to celebrate his first Christmas at the Vatican, Americans' opinions of the pontiff appear to be as high as the dome on St. Peter's Basilica, according to a new survey.

A CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday found that 88% of American Catholics approve of how Francis is handling his role as head of the 1.2 billion-member church.

The popular pontiff has also made a positive impression among Americans in general: Nearly three in four view Francis favorably. The new survey suggests that the Pope is arguably the most well-regarded religious figure among the American public today, said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The Pope has also shown a common touch rare for such a lofty religious leader. He has eschewed the trappings of the papacy in favor of humbler digs, simpler vestments and a cheaper car. He worked as a bar bouncer and a janitor before he was a priest, and is not shy about telling people.

Charles P. Pierce at Esquire Magazine is doing the yeoman's work this year of heaping shovel loads of shame on our President and politicians for seeing that the comfortable are not afflicted -- at the expense of the already afflicted:

The Congress of the United States left town this week very proud of itself. It had reached an accommodation by which the Republicans agreed that they would allow the government to function in a minimal capacity over the next two years and the Democrats agreed that they would be grateful to the Republicans for doing that. And then they all wished themselves well and went home, many of them, the ones proclaiming themselves most loudly to be the followers of the Jesus Christ of the Gospels, looking forward to being able to say "Merry Christmas" freely again, free from the liberals who have placed imaginary shackles upon their fictional freedom to keep the day in their own way. And tonight, many of the members of that Congress once again will go to the church of their choice, as the old public-service ads would have it. There will be candles and singing and fellowship and, afterwards, people will come to the house and there will be more candles and more singing and much more fellowship and nobody will be hungry in those places.

We are two nations but we do not have to be. We are two nations because we choose to be. We are two nations because we have separated churches from religion, religion from faith, and faith from the gospels. We are two nations because we pray to god and against our fellow citizens. We are two nations because we have made of religion a set of laws, and a set of laws into a religion. We are two nations because we hate the sin but love the sinner, and we are not wise enough in our hearts to know that you cannot divorce one from the other. Hate is hate. We are two nations because we hate the sin and are not wise enough in our hearts that this is very definition of self-loathing, because we all stumble and we all fall, rich and poor alike. We are two nations because we choose to be.

There is a kind of justice rising, I believe, and not just because of the season, although I freely confess to being a sucker thereto. There is a pope impatient with the shotgun marriage of cupidity and virtue, and who is not shy about explaining why. There is a sense in our politics that we are now paying for having abandoned the creative act of self-government through which we build a political commonwealth, a sense that we allowed that great work to be hijacked by religious grifters, and political bunco artists, and the various assortment of thieves and brigands to whom we handed the world's finances. There is a feeling in the land that the mist has begin to burn away, and that we see more clearly than ever the consequences of decades of choices, made and not made, and that we see more clearly than ever the work that has to be done to repair what we have chosen to do to our country and to ourselves. We can still refuse to do the work, but we no longer have the excuse available to us that we don't know what has to be done.

We can remain two nations because we choose to be. Or we can shake off the lethargy of an atrophied citizenship. We can rediscover the common good, the deep and abiding current within true democracy toward equality and justice. This is, after all, a season of hope and rebirth and of the fall, silent as the dead of night, of an old order and an ancient way of doing things. We are two nations, but we do not have to be.

This country's destiny, as it has been since it's inception, truly is in the hands of it's people --- and most assuredly not the hands of a selfish minority of plutocrats. All it takes to ensure that our Great Experiment succeeds is a collective will to acknowledge that the path we are currently on is the wrong path, and that our democracy's survival is wholly dependent upon the acceptance of the reality that we are all in this together ---- united we stand, divided we fall.

The Gadfly sincerely wishes all of you dear readers, yes even The Gadfly's detractors, a wonderful Christmas and best wishes to you all in the coming New Year.

The Gadfly is kicking his secular Christmas celebration in to high gear. The honey ham is ready to go in to the oven, the Jambalaya ingredients are ready to mix up in to a divine gift for the undiscriminating palate, and the music . . . . .

If you're as busy as The Gadfly is and just don't have the time to be playing Sinterklass DJ, here's a decent YouTube 3-hour medley of classic Christmas songs that is pretty good and with the added bonus that you can individually select songs (click on the 'about' tab to expand the song selection) that you like . . . enjoy:

Yes - it is true that The Gadfly pledged to willfully, and with ruminant aforethought, avoid further commentary on the asininity of the Duck Dinosty kerfluffle, and he fully intends to honor that commitment.

However, since the right wing quacks appear to be aggressively intent on martyring the bible-thumping old bigot Phil Robertson on the alter of free speech, a principle incidentally that they only find reverence for when it suits their ideological agenda, The Gadfly is going to bend, but not break his vow.

The Gadfly absolutely will not be posting a lengthy, personal diatribe on this issue. Instead, The Gadfly is going to allow an authentic southern man to express his views about the Duck Dodgers klan and their "reality" show con game which has begotten a whole bunch of mutton-headed rubes worshiping a bunch of false prophets just so they can lay claim to having been comrades in unified spite.

Take it away southern man:

And thus officially ends The Gadfly's participation in this sordid melodrama.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Gadfly is in a seasonal good tidings frame of mind, so he will mercifully refrain from tearing in to Greta Van Susteren like a monkey on a cupcake, even though she is wholly deserving of it for this unadulterated horseshit:

Greta Van Susteren said on Sunday that President Barack Obama's end-of-the-year press conference Friday provided further evidence of why his approval ratings have dropped so low and how the media are not helping.

Appearing on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," the Fox News anchor criticized reporters' treatment of the president and the questions they asked at the press conference.

"The media beat up on him," Van Susteren said. "The media had bad questions. They kept punching him."

The Gadfly will, however, address Greta's points just so it is clear to you dear readers that The Gadfly remains committed to one of the core tenets of this shitty little blog, namely that of afflicting the comfortable.

On the first point -- there are several contributing factors Greta for Obama's year-end lower approval ratings (just under 50%). Obviously a lot of that has to do with the botched rollout of the ACA health care exchanges, which although that problem appears to have been adequately addressed, it still caused enough initial anguish and frustration with people, along with bad press (most of it deserved), that the negative ramifications of it all are bound to carry over for an extended period of time. Secondly, just about every president goes through a roller coaster of high and low approval ratings in their second term. Just keep in mind that George W. Bush left office with the lowest ever approval rating of any President in the history of polling at 22%. Even if Obama ends up losing another 15 points by the end of this term, he will still have gone out more popular a President than Bush.

On your second point Greta. The Gadfly agrees with you -- that press conference was indeed "depressing" and "pathetic." It was mostly that way thanks in large part to an equally depressing and pathetic Washington press corps. You yourself Greta noted that the media had "bad questions" and kept "punching" Obama and that they insisted on repeatedly asking the same fucking question of Obama as to his personal reflections on how bad of a year his presidency had experienced. While there is plenty to criticize in Obama's policies, the fact that the Washington press behaves like arrogant, snot-nosed pricks and would rather snipe at the President rather than ask any questions of substance and which are important to the American people, should not reflect in any way on Obama himself. The Gadfly would feel a bit depressed as well if he had to face those two-faced, sniveling ankle biters while trying to get out the door to spend Christmas with his family.

And lastly Greta -- you say you felt the urge to just "slit your throat" while watching Obama's press conference because it depressed you so deeply.

Welcome to The Gadfly's world lady -- because that is precisely how The Gadfly feels nearly every day as he is confronted with the seemingly bottomless pit of lies and bullshit that are constantly being spewed forth from the conservative media propaganda outfit that employs you.

But right now Greta, it's Christmas - and The Gadfly is in a hospitable mood - so let us just leave this bit of nonsense as it is. There will be plenty of time in the coming new year for you to spread your misinformation on Fox "News" and for which The Gadfly will be more than delighted to summarily debunk and expose you and your network for the frauds that you are.

I see the New York Times has published yet another article about very privileged people whining about the ACA.In this case, said article features a couple making $100,000 a year who, under the ACA, will be paying $1,000 a month for health care covering themselves and their two sons. Take it away, Dean Baker:

Here they are with a front page story telling us about the tragic situation of the Chapmans, a New Hampshire couple making $100,000 a year who will have to spend $1,000 a month for insurance with Obamacare. This would come to 12 percent of their income. The piece tells readers:

That’s interesting. If we go to the Kaiser Family Foundation website we find that the average employee contribution for an employer provided family plan is $4,240. The average employer contribution is $11,240. That gives us a total of $15,470. Most economists would say that we should treat the employers payment as a cost to the worker since in general employers are no more happy to pay money to health insurance companies than to their workers. If they didn’t pay this money as health insurance then they would be paying it to their workers in wages.

The Gadfly said it quite some time ago and he will restate it --- The Gadfly would be happy to have a calm, rational and very open discussion on the issue of health care in America if any conservative anywhere can coherently and sensibly explain to The Gadfly why it is that allowing a massively inefficient and wasteful, self-interested, profit-driven entity like the healthcare insurance industry to be the arbitrating middle man between the state of our individual health and our doctors, is the one and only solution to the nation's health care dilemma. That offer remains open and yet to be responded to.

Oh - and btw - this family in the NYT story that is bitching and moaning about having to spend $1,000 a month for health care coverage on their family of four --- on their paltry income of $100,000+ a year --- imagine another family of four facing that very same expenditure on only half of that income, or a third of it, or even less . . . .

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

When conservatives acknowledge that there is something terribly wrong with the way this country is presently providing a basic life necessity such as health care to ALL of it's citizenry, that will be the day that The Gadfly will gladly offer such a conservative a seat at his kitchen table so that we might sit down and have an adult conversation on the matter.

Until then, "news" stories about people making more than $100k a year crying about having to spend 12% of their income to provide quality health care for their family just doesn't elicit much sympathy from The Gadfly.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

The Gadfly likes it more than anything, not because of the brand name because he him self is a two-wheel aficionado, albeit not of the HD strain.

That being said, here is how The Gadfly combines his love of Christmas and motorcycle hooliganism -- and yes, this is the real deal dear readers, and that is Gadfly Kringle's very own two-wheeled sleigh:

Friday, December 20, 2013

Of all of the filmed versions of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', by far The Gadfly's favorite is the 1951 version starring Alistair Sim as the insufferably spiteful and uncompassionate Ebeneezer Scrooge. It was this version that The Gadfly recalls watching so many times as a wee lad around the Christmas holiday, and while there are many other well-made remakes of the venerable old classic, it is this version that brings back The Gadfly's memories and which is an annual catalyst that triggers the spirit of empathy and humanity which The Gadfly feels for those less fortunate than his self.

This scene from the movie really is the heart of the tale:

The Gadfly is convinced that Charles Dickens must have come in to possession of a magic crystal ball back in 1843 when he wrote 'A Christmas Carol.' A crystal ball that allowed him see in to the future and gain insight in to the economic inequalities of present day society. As such, he must have foreseen the results of modern money worship hallmarked by people like the 6 individual members of the Walton (Walmart) family who own more of the nation's wealth than the bottom 40% (128 million) of Americans, yet their employees are paid so miserly that nearly half of them are on some form of tax-payer public assistance.

He must have foreseen the rise of the Jack Kingstons of the present age - waxing nostalgic about child labor and forcing the innocent children of the economically disadvantaged to swing a mop and a broom for their daily bread.

He must have foreseen the relentless attacks by the moneyed elites on workers rights and livable wages.

He must have foreseen the steady erosion of middle class economic security and stability in the form of profitable corporations off-shoring good paying jobs in exchange for third world cheap labor, the erosion of benefits and pensions and retirement plans, and the buying of corrupt politicians to do their legislative bidding - all with the aim of weakening the will of the workers ever so steadily.

Yes -- Dickens must have foreseen all of it -- which in turn inspired his mind to put pen to paper and create the execrable character that was the unenlightened Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yet Dickens' story was also a story of hope - hope that mankind's selfishness and vindictiveness could be softened by embracing the ideals of love, charity and compassion and by accepting the reality that we are all in this human struggle together.

The Gadfly is not naive. He accepts the reality that the worst instincts of the worst citizens in our society, and in the world at large, are not going to change just by watching an old Christmas movie. But he still has some remnants of hope that enough decent, caring and visionary people will arrive at the realization that their force in numbers is more than enough to effectively mitigate the human damage being perpetrated by the greed and avarice of all the Scrooges of the world.

It's not armed robbers or warring gangs who send the greatest percentage of gunshot survivors to Florida emergency rooms.

It's people who shoot someone, or themselves, accidentally.

Four out of every 10 people who are rushed to a Florida hospital or emergency room with a nonfatal wound were shotby accident, according to hospital data collected by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and published by the Florida Department of Health.

You cannot tell The Gadfly that nobody bothered to contemplate the real-world consequences of allowing gun worship and gun fetishism to dominate our culture at the expense of public health and safety. Because the fact of the matter is - plenty of people did - and their voices were summarily ignored -- and as a result -- Voila!

The Gadfly is curious as to how you, dear reader, would react if The Gadfly were to tell you that in the year of our Noodly Appendage 2012, that your federal government gave out $240 billion in housing aid. And of that $240 billion in taxpayer subsidies, over half of it went to households who had a reported annual income of more than $100,000 (that's one hundred thousand dollars per year), and $34 billion of that amount went to households with a reported annual income of more than $200,000 (that's two hundred thousand dollars per year).

If your reaction was something along the lines of this . . .

. . . The Gadfly welcomes you to the proverbial fucking club.

The Center for Budget Policy Priorities released a number of charts today that shows how much the federal government favors high-income households over low-income ones in housing benefits.

This largely results from the fact that homeowners receive significantly more aid than renters and high-income Americans are much more likely to be homeowners.

In 2012, the federal government gave out $240 billion in housing aid. Income data is not available for all of it, but of what is available, more than half went to those with incomes greater than $100,000 ($81.6 billion). Only $40 billion went to those with incomes less than $50,000.

Overall, high income households receive four times as much in housing aid as low-income ones.

The main reason for this is the majority of federal housing aid flows to homeowners, not renters. The mortgage interest deduction is the most well-known program that subsidizes homeownership. That deduction alone is larger than all federal rental aid combined.

Now, just so that it is clearly understood, The Gadfly was so stunned by this article that before he allowed his hackles to be raised and his fingertips to dance manically across his keyboard in conveying utter contempt for such a travesty, The Gadfly did go to Business Insider's source, the CBPP (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) to confirm the data.

Is The Gadfly somehow off his rocker when he states with all due sincerity, that up until now, whenever he heard the words "federal housing aid" used in the context of discussions surrounding the national budget, that it was just natural to assume that "aid" of that type was flowing exclusively to those at the bottom of the income ladder and those most desperately in need? The Gadfly is being serious here dear readers. Please help him reconcile in his dirty old hippie mind the circumstances of how it is that someone with an annual income of over $200,000 is not only in need of government assistance to keep a roof over their heads, but is actually granted it?

Perhaps The Gadfly's ire would be much more tempered if it weren't for the fact that a great many of these $200K a year earners are the same fucking people who love to point fingers and divide our society in to the simplistic economic categories of "makers" and "takers." The takers in their view comprise basically anyone accepting federal tax dollars under the umbrella of the social welfare contract, up to and including food stamps, housing aid, unemployment insurance, child care subsidies, healthcare, etc....

So obviously this study begs the question -- just who are the real "takers" in our society? The Gadfly thinks it would be a dandy idea to have a robust national debate on this issue --- let us get this class warfare discussion out in to the open sunlight and let's get EVERYTHING on the table, such as studies like this one from the CBPP. Let us have a transparent, honest and adult conversation on this very important topic.

If you dear reader are of the belief that The Gadfly is pulling your leg with that exhortation of holding a comprehensive, open and serious civic dialogue on this subject, you wouldn't be too wrong. While The Gadfly would welcome such a legitimate and refreshing bout of reality-based deliberations on this "makers and takers" quarrel, The Gadfly is not so much the fool to believe that the elites in this country would ever, ever allow such a seminal occasion to occur. Because to do so would be akin to turning on a bright light in the darkened kitchen of an abandoned slum dwelling and seeing the cockroaches dart off in to all of the murky corners. And if you haven't figured it out yet, the cockroaches are the elites themselves and the murky corners are where they perform their unceasing business of constantly plotting how to take more and more out of the national treasury for themselves and leaving fewer and fewer crumbs for the rest of society.

As stated in many a previous post dear readers, The Gadfly can only bring this information to your undivided attention. What you as a citizen decide to do, or not to do with it is entirely up to you -- just know that the consequences of inaction bode far worse for the future outcome of your children and grandchildren's quality of life than deciding to stand up and have your voice be heard.

And that is about all that The Gadfly has to say about this disheartening matter.

There will be light posting by The Gadlfy over the coming week due to seasonal activities that The Gadfly is duty bound to participate in, but fret not, The Gadfly is truly looking forward to the coming new year and ratcheting up his muckraking mission to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

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Meanwhile, as 1.3 million Americans are on the cusp of having their long term federal unemployment insurance benefits dry up in the blink of an eye, the people who claim the mantle of being America's "mainstream" media are ignoring that real-life, human impacting story because they are much too busy tut-tutting and falling like dominoes on to their fainting couches about some backwater redneck patriarch who has parlayed his family redneck business into a tidy sum of wealth and in the process become a "reality" television star, publicly saying some fairly nasty and un-Christian things about gays and African Americans.

First off, The Gadfly does not give a flying monkey's sphincter about Duck Dodgers of Dynastyville or whatever the fuck "reality" show the old, dry-rot brained bigot Phil Robertson is a "star" of. Just .. does .. not .. care. Mr. Clampett, er...Robertson, is fully entitled to his public opinions, as hateful and ignorant as they are, and if it is his desire to present his self to the world as a boorish, vindictive asshole, then that is entirely his constitutionally guaranteed prerogative.

But mark The Gadfly's words, watch as in the coming days, the right wingers in this country attempt to portray this knuckle-dragging hick as the poor, defenseless victim in this whole sordid scenario. Watch as they try to elevate him to hero status on the level of some of the icons of the civil rights movement or the international human rights movement. Watch how they cry rivers of crocodile tears about how the poor cracker's free speech rights have been infringed upon and about how intolerant the mean old liberals are being to him. Watch how they masterfully play the lapdog media like a fiddle and elicit haughty pundit opinion pieces chastising liberals for their intolerance and contributing to the coarsening of public discourse in the country. (pssst!: all of the aforementioned is already occurring - click here and here and here).

Well -- you go ahead and watch it all dear readers, because The Gadfly is not planning to do so. The Gadfly has about as much interest in watching that maudlin Kabuki theater play it's pathetic self out as he has in watching an army of pissed-off fire ants swarm his genital region.

As Christmas and the New Year approach, The Gadfly would much prefer to conserve his combative energies and his biting wit for the really important battles to come against conservative governing idiocy, and make no mistake about it, those are going to be some fierce battles.

In closing of this post, instead of wasting your life force by getting embroiled in this Duck Soup buffoonery, better spent would be your time by contacting your Congress critter's or Senator's office and expressing your displeasure at seeing more than a million of your fellow working Americans having their last resort of income be sacrificed on the gilded alter of supply-side economic austerity -- not to mention the inherent cruelty and immorality of it.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

After that Jack Kingston, let the toddlers work to stave off hunger story, The Gadfly really needed something like this to assuage his impassioned ire and refocus his energies back to the core mission of this shitty little blog . . .